|
Motto — a quote from JOE DAVIS :
If you build the bridge, sooner or later somebody's gonna come across
Motto 2 — a quote from SLEAFORD MODS :
Have you ever wondered why you wonder why?
|
|
Elvin Flamingo
Symbiosity of Creation/
dimensions : width 7 meters, height 2 meters, depth 2 meters.
Symbiosity of Creation from Elvin Flamingo on Vimeo.
Elvin Flamingo
Symbiosity of Creation — Self-commentary on the artist's achievements, written in 2014
From my teens, I wanted to be a director, to make films, and to try to join the ranks of the most important authors of filmed works. Engrossed in books about the cinema, film, its history, and the biographies of my favorite directors, I would also go to all of the Dyskusyjnych Klubów Filmowych (Film Discussion Clubs) of those days that were within my reach. So, why didn't I follow the traditional path and apply to the directing program at film school? I wasn't ready.
My student days were times of galloping inflation and the beginnings of western European capitalism, which, together with the need to become independent, pushed me onto an upward “career” path of a good, driven commercial graphic artist. The “artistic world” of the time, which, naturally, as a student of fine arts, could have pulled me in, very quickly ceased to interest me at all.
Today, the regulations of the artistic world are more transparent, and I understand that this world is obviously close to or even part of both business and politics combined. I didn't yet understand this when I was a student, and perhaps the local world of that time didn't either—it just functioned on intuition.
In an effort to analyze my six years of artistic achievements, the most obvious axis that penetrates most of my work is the reminiscences of my young dreams. However, the redefinition of them is very clear. The master degree diploma was a film, and immediately following this in 2008 my artistic debut was also a film, followed by several adroitly edited short films. The installation Dwaj ludzie z napisem Sopot (Two People with the Sopot Sign) is a clear departure from the classic film form, and it's my first “film” that isn't a film even if it was straightforwardly inspired by Roman Polański's Dwaj ludzie z szafą (Two Men with a Wardrobe). Saving the shipyard Styrofoam (which wasn't there at the time of the strikes in 1980) is already a “film” that exceeded it's boundaries—a “film” that was created by me and the media and their audiences. In the last project, Symbiotyczność tworzenia (The Symbiosity of Creation), I have arrived at the type of “film” that satisfies me fully as that “film maker” I dreamed of while attending film discussion clubs as a high school student.
Is my current project, which I foresee enduring for many long years, the continuation of the topic of my previous works, or is it clearly a discontinuation? I think it's both. Of course, I'm aware that I'm playing with “enigma” here, and that I like saying what I have to say unclearly, and by doing so I'm obviously risking that no one will understand me. This happened very evidently with the shipyard Styrofoam. My concept was to visualize the irony and cynicism of the current situation in the Gdansk shipyard sites in the context of the transformation and strikes of 1980. And perhaps, with the reaction this project provoked among the public, I succeeded...?
I,m interested myself to see how Symbiotyczność tworzenia plays out. That the project is so very unpredictable is also an equally important reason why I'm running it, like the ones I write about in my doctoral dissertation.
What has changed in my thinking, among other things, is that I've made a strong move away from the topic of locality and I've developed the conviction that if locality is required to interpret a particular work, it will be found. This is certainly a discontinuation.
The first, historic exhibition of the Symbiosity of Creation at the Wyspa Institute of Art, September 2014
Symbiosity of Creation at the artist's basement in Sopot, before the public premiere, 2013
|
|
|
